Поезията като бунтовно изкуство

by Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Лорънс Ферлингети, Manol Peykov (Translator)

Ферлингети (р. 1919) е един от легендарните поети от поколението на битниците. Стихосбирката му "Coney Island of the Mind" (1958) продава над милион екземпляра и се превръща в своеобразна легенда в САЩ, и то далеч не само в литературните кръгове. Създаденото от него издателство City Lights Booksellers & Publishers издава ключовите произведения на Гинзбърг, Керуак и Буковски (близки негови приятели), които променят Америка и света. Едноименната книжарница в Сан Франциско се счита за една от най-важните независими книжарници в САЩ.

Genres: Poetry, Writing, Nonfiction, The United States Of America, Essays, Literature, Classics

130 pages, Hardcover

First published September 1, 2007

About the author

A prominent voice of the wide-open poetry movement that began in the 1950s, Lawrence Ferlinghetti has written poetry, translation, fiction, theater, art criticism, film narration, and essays. Often concerned with politics and social issues, Ferlinghetti’s poetry countered the literary elite's definition of art and the artist's role in the world. Though imbued with the commonplace, his poetry cannot be simply described as polemic or personal protest, for it stands on his craftsmanship, thematics, and grounding in tradition.

Ferlinghetti was born in Yonkers in 1919, son of Carlo Ferlinghetti who was from the province of Brescia and Clemence Albertine Mendes-Monsanto. Following his undergraduate years at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, he served in the U.S. Navy in World War II as a ship's commander. He received a Master’s degree from Columbia University in 1947 and a Doctorate de l’Université de Paris (Sorbonne) in 1950. From 1951 to 1953, when he settled in San Francisco, he taught French in an adult education program, painted, and wrote art criticism. In 1953, with Peter D. Martin (son of Carlo Tresca) he founded City Lights Bookstore, the first all-paperbound bookshop in the country, and by 1955 he had launched the City Lights publishing house.

The bookstore has served for half a century as a meeting place for writers, artists, and intellectuals. City Lights Publishers began with the Pocket Poets Series, through which Ferlinghetti aimed to create an international, dissident ferment. His publication of Allen Ginsberg’s Howl & Other Poems in 1956 led to his arrest on obscenity charges, and the trial that followed drew national attention to the San Francisco Renaissance and Beat movement writers. (He was overwhelmingly supported by prestigious literary and academic figures, and was acquitted.) This landmark First Amendment case established a legal precedent for the publication of controversial work with redeeming social importance.

Ferlinghetti’s paintings have been shown at various galleries around the world, from the Butler Museum of American Painting to Il Palazzo delle Esposizioni in Rome. He has been associated with the international Fluxus movement through the Archivio Francesco Conz in Verona. He has toured Italy, giving poetry readings in Roma, Napoli, Bologna, Firenze, Milano, Verona, Brescia, Cagliari, Torino, Venezia, and Sicilia. He won the Premio Taormino in 1973, and since then has been awarded the Premio Camaiore, the Premio Flaiano, the Premio Cavour. among others. He is published in Italy by Oscar Mondadori, City Lights Italia, and Minimum Fax. He was instrumental in arranging extensive poetry tours in Italy produced by City Lights Italia in Firenze. He has translated from the italian Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Poemi Romani, which is published by City Lights Books. In San Francisco, his work can regularly be seen at the George Krevsky Gallery at 77 Geary Street.

Ferlinghetti’s A Coney Island of the Mind continues to be the most popular poetry book in the U.S. It has been translated into nine languages, and there are nearly 1,000,000 copies in print. The author of poetry, plays, fiction, art criticism, and essays, he has a dozen books currently in print in the U.S., and his work has been translated in many countries and in many languages. His most recent books are A Far Rockaway of the Heart (1997), How to Paint Sunlight (2001), and Americus Book I (2004) published by New Directions.

He has been the recipient of numerous prizes, including the Los Angeles Times’ Robert Kirsch Award, the BABRA Award for Lifetime Achievement, the National Book Critics Circle Ivan Sandrof Award for Contribution to American Arts and Letters, the American Civil Liberties Union’s Earl Warren Civil Liberties Award. Ferlinghetti was named San Francisco’s first poet laureate.

Reviews

[Michael · Rating 2 out of 5]

i will not walk this path with you
Ferlinghetti,

i will not swallow
your self-aware self-

important sense of self-
worth as you swear in so many words

the world will be saved by poetry.
and i spent summers in sweltering

coffeehouses with cigarette smoke
dense and packed as the words

of amateur after amateur patting the backs
of other amateurs in an amateur display of

"we are poet, hear us roar,"
but i will not swallow this splenda-made sweetness

that poetry is saving the world.
i won't swallow that kool-aid.

i remember in cloewes hall in 2000, your grip
on a starbucks vente, as you preached

the evils of autos and corporations as
you pushed your sequel to your most successful book so snidely.

now your pint-sized collection of pretensions
previously published and stale on the shelf

cancels out its message by its existence.

if you believed these words, they wouldn't be printed
in limited edition and signed and sold,

they'd be echoing across internets. they'd be
screaming from graffittied walls and they'd

be tattooed across your bookstore. so,
i will not walk that path with you, that dead end

path of poetry being the salvation of this country.

salvation is protest in the streets. salvation is blocked intersections and the intersections of ideas in genuine debate, salvation is in escaping the screaming heads that pretend to communicate on television. salvation is not poetry. it is the feminists who insist the way we think about thinking is wrong, salvation is somewhere beyond that place where we think differently.

salvation doesn't wear tweed and read from old yellowed pages. salvation doesn't produce postcards, it can't be sold for 12.95
to fauxrevolutionaries and tourists with fanniepacks taking pictures
next to cardboard ginsbergs. i've seen good minds of my generation

distracted by pseudophilosophical bullshit
by spouting slam on stages, their rage

flayed upon appearance because every mother-
fucker in the room already agrees.

i've seen them muted by their chap-books that sit
in piles of rebellion unbought on apartment floors.

i've seen some of the good minds of my generation
in bland rebellions by bong and by song

but rebellions don't stay in apartments on couches under marley flags. rebellions don't simmer in coffeehouses before pouring out momentarily satiated into apathetic streets. poetry is a non-rebellion when it doesn't invade the vision of those who don't want to see it.

you snidely look down your nose at academics
who place thoughts of doubt like seeds in minds

while you stew in your own juices and make money
off echoes of your revolution that is over.

the revolution won't hold tight to reveries of the past.
it won't fear the internet; it won't run from technology.

the revolution will be in minutea, as every generation
is less locked into the fears of the past, as gay

is legalized, as more people realize how this country
treats other countries, as more eyes open to injustice.

Howard Zinn's prose (which you look down upon) opens eyes.
The web opens eyes as we see further, learn faster,

travel the globe in seconds, as it becomes closer and closer
to impossible to deny we're all human and no one is "other."

you sung the song of the revolution, ferlinghetti,
but now your revolution is rapidly aging.

get out of the new one if you can't lend your hand.

[Ulysse · Rating 5 out of 5]

Don’t fiddle with your moustache in hopeless cellars, writing incomprehensible drivel.

I never had the urge to grow a moustache
Or fiddle with the ends of one
But of drivel I got a mega stash
In my cellars of hopeless fun

If you don’t have an urge to sing, don’t open your mouth.

Ok Lawrence I’ll keep my mouth shut
But if I die of hunger or thirst
I’ll write my epitaph and not
Forget to quote you first

Compose on the tongue, not on the page.

My tongue ith tho thwollen
I can barely thpeak
Thith Ferlinghetti fellow
Wath one thadithtic freak!

Give a voice to the tongueless street.

Uuuh uuuuuh uuuuuh!
Aaarrrr aaaaarrrrrrr aaarrrrrrrrrr!
Honk honk hoooooooonk!
Hiiii hiiiiiiiiiiiiii hiiiiii!

Poetry the underwear of the soul.

I hope my soul has good hygiene
And showers twice a day
Else my poems'll seem unclean
And keep my friends away

Poetry about poetry is counterfeit poetry.

This indeed is very bad news
For I thought I'd struck gold
With my idea for verse reviews
Now they're all fake I'm told!

Be a literalist of the imagination.

Done

[Paula Mota · Rating 5 out of 5]

4,5*

É impossível não gostar de manifestos literários. Lembro-me do “Manifesto Anti-Dantas” e de como ele me faz sempre sorrir. “A Poesia como Arte Insurgente” também me traz um sorriso aos lábios, não só pelo carácter insubmisso, mas também pela sensibilidade e vivacidade de Lawrence Ferlinghetti, mesmo quando está a criticar, mesmo quando está a apelar à acção e à revolução cultural e social.
Esta obra está dividida em três partes: “A Poesia como Arte Insurgente”, “O que é a Poesia?” e “Premonições”, formada por textos escritos nos anos 70.
Ferlinghetti ficou órfão de pai antes de sequer nascer, viveu algum tempo num orfanato, combateu na Segunda Guerra Mundial, fundou a editora City Lights Books em São Francisco, foi um precursor da Beat Generation, um poeta anti-sistema e morreu no ano passado, com 101 anos.
Reproduzo apenas o que mais me encantou para evitar ser maçuda, mas garanto que é um livro que vale a pena ler de uma ponta à outra, marcar, copiar, reler muitas vezes e citar sempre que se encontra um caso de poesia pobrezinha ou manienta.

A POESIA COMO ARTE INSURGENTE
- Um poema deve cantar e voar contigo, caso contrário não passa de um pato morto com alma de prosa.
- As tuas imagens num poema deviam ser um jamais-vu, não um déjà-vu.
- Aprecia o pessimismo do intelecto e o optimismo da vontade.
- Sê um lobo no redil do silêncio.
- Nunca acredites que a poesia é irrelevante em tempos sombrios.

O QUE É A POESIA?
- Poesia, a roupa interior da alma
- A poesia é a redescoberta do eu contra a tribo.
- A poesia é o verdadeiro tema da grande prosa.
- A poesia é fazer alguma coisa a partir de nada, e pode ser sobre nada e ainda assim significar alguma coisa.

MANIFESTO POPULISTA #2
(...)
Não se fechem nas vossas solidões públicas
vós, poetas com outras visões
com visões isoladas e solitárias
visões indomadas, nunca encurraladas
visões ferozes e recalcitrantes
vós, Whitmans com outro fôlego
que não é o fôlego demasiado fresco da poesia moderna
que não é o mau hálito da civilização industrial
Escutem agora, escutem de novo
A melodia no sangue, o duende sombrio, um cântico sombrio
Entre o tiquetaque da civilização

A POESIA MODERNA É PROSA (1978)
(...)
A maior parte da poesia moderna é prosa poética, mas diz bastante, através do seu próprio exemplo, sobre a morte do espírito a que nos pode levar a nossa civilização tecnocrática, enredada em máquinas e nacionalismos machistas, enquanto alguns continuam a ansiar por um rouxinol entre os pinheiros de Respinghi. É o pássaro a cantar que nos deixa felizes.

[Dave Schaafsma · Rating 3 out of 5]

RIP, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, 2021, at the age of 101. A collection of aphorisms about poetry as revolutionary and insurgent, counter-cultural, thoughts from 1975 to the present. I think I owned a copy of it in the seventies. Here's a page sample:

I am signaling you through the flames.

The North Pole is not where it used to be.

Manifest Destiny is no longer manifest.

Civilization self-destructs.

Nemesis is knocking at the door.

What are poets for, in such an age?
What is the use of poetry?

The state of the world calls out for poetry to save it.

If you would be a poet, create works capable of answering the challenge of apocalyptic times, even if this meaning sounds apocalyptic.

You are Whitman, you are Poe, you are Mark Twain, you are Emily Dickinson and Edna St. Vincent Millay, you are Neruda and Mayakovsky and Pasolini, you are an American or a non-American, you can conquer the conquerors with words. . . .

I believe that poetry will save the world less than I did in 1975, that's for sure. I prefer Ferlinghetti's poetry to his reflections on poetry. But I love the shape and size of this little New Directions Pocket Book that you can take with you on a walk in your back pocket.

[Габриела Манова]

Някои изречения са особено остроумни, но за пореден път се убеждавам, че не мога да чета такъв тип поезия и това е.

[muthuvel]

"As with humans, poems have fatal flaws."

Living in a world of words and images! Medium is the massage! Certain medium has its own ways of cognitive mass conditioning. Taking language as one of the foundational precursors to civilization, the emergent still continue to elude some of us even in these times of ideological wordplays. Plato spewed out his disapproval of poets and dramatists as he couldn't reconcile his dichotomy with emotions and intellect, and of metaphysical sorts. Since then, Poetry has gone a long way over the course of millennia and had withstood through the aid of many giants.

I think perceiving Poetry is very similar to perceiving a Culture. Similar to cultures, us judging poetry tells more about ourselves than anything about it inherently.

Mentioning again the times of ideological wordplays, Ferlinghetti provides a possibility of reality here with political poetry empowering and inspiring people with visions.

In the later part of the collections, I liked a few snipped on his critique on poetry among other things being used as a ideological control in the world of consumerism ( little situationist vibes I might be imagining it myself tho)

"..We have seen the best minds of our

generation

destroyed by boredom at poetry

readings."

In Modern Poetry is Prose (1978), he ponders over the influence of ever changing environment on humans thirst for poetry, especially the late drastic times of industrialisation, and the present whatever-you-wanna-call-it times, finding people (un)settling with monotonous lifestyles as settled as mud puddles has its own influence in perceiving the nature of poetry. Maybe it has to be reminded to us often, that it is the bird singing that makes us happy.

[Paula Abreu Silva · Rating 4 out of 5]

"A poesia enquanto âncora na tua vida só vale consoante a profundidade que consegue atingir."

"A poesia não se resume a heroína, cavalos e Rimbaud. É também a oração impotente de cada passageiro que aperta o seu cinto de segurança antes da descida final do avião."

"Poesia, o principal condutor da emoção."

"A poesia é a anarquia dos sentidos que faz sentido."

[Vanya · Rating 5 out of 5]

"ВСЯКА ПТИЦА Е ДУМА, ВСЯКА ДУМА Е ПТИЦА."

Трудно ще намеря подходящите думи да изкажа възторга и щастието си от това да държа тази скъпоценна книга в ръце. Има много хора, на които да благодаря за нея: на Лорънс Ферлингети, че я написа, на Манол Пейков, че я преведе, на Люба Халева, че я нарисува, и на някой, който ме познава достатъчно добре, че избра да ме зарадва с нея.

На този някой благодаря най-вече! ❤️

Чувствам се като човек, на когото са сложили в ръцете живо, туптящо сърце и са му казали: "Вече е твое!".

За това "мое" благодаря!!!

РЕЦЕПТА ЗА ЩАСТИЕ В ХАБАРОВСК
ИЛИ КЪДЕТО И ДА Е

Един голям булевард с ��ървета
с едно голямо кафене точно под слънцето
със силно черно кафе в много мънички чашки

Един не непременно много красив
мъж или жена който да ви обича

Един разкошен ден

1973

Лорънс Ферлингети
Превод от английски: Манол Пейков

[Pam · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rating this book is difficult. I found the writing charming, sometimes a bit old-fashioned in thinking, but charming nonetheless. However, it is the physical volume itself that I adore. For some reason, this little book inspires me to keep it near to hand, to stick it in the back pocket of my jeans, to hold it and to enjoy its presence in my life. For that reason, I give it four stars. Not necessarily for the poetry itself, but for the joy the entire book has given me.

[la poesie a fleur de peau]

"The poet a membrane to filter light and disappear in it."

***

Quando o Lawrence Ferlinghetti morreu a primeira coisa que fiz foi escrever-lhe um poema de despedida. Meses mais tarde peguei neste livro e dei-lhe um lugar na minha mesa de cabeceira. Viajou comigo, descobriu verdades e mentiras acerca do amor, da doença e da dor.
Esta noite abro-o numa página ao calhas e gravo estas luzes na retina — agora, sempre que perco a fé ou a direcção, sei que há algo nestes rastos de cometa que me indicam o caminho a seguir.

[Tsvetelina Mareva · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Поезията е да направиш нещо от нищо; тя може да е за нищо и въпреки това да означава нещо."

"Поезията, както и любовта, е естествено обезболяващо. На етикета върху шишето пише: "Възстановява почудата и невинността."

"Поезията е една гола жена, един гол мъж, и разстоянието между тях."

[Lyubina Litsova · Rating 5 out of 5]

This tiny book is full of inspirational and passionate thoughts about what poetry is. But basically is about what life should be - poetry in expression, poetry in motion, poetry in being.

"I am signaling you through the flames.
The North Pole is not where it used to be.
Manifest Destiny is no longer manifest.
Civilization self-destructs.
Nemesis is knocking at the door.
What are poets for, in such an age?
What is the use of poetry?

The state of the world calls out for poetry to save it.
If you would be a poet, create works capable of answering the challenge of apocalyptic times, even if this meaning sounds apocalyptic.
If you would be a poet, discover a new way for mortals to inhabit the earth.
If you would be a poet, invent a new language anyone can understand.
If you would be a poet, speak new truths the world can't deny.
If you would be a great poet, strive to transcribe the consciousness of the race.
Through art, create order out of the chaos of living.
Make it new news.

Write beyond time.
Reinvent the idea of truth.
Reinvent the idea of beauty.
In the first light, wax poetic. In the night, wax tragic.
Listen to the lisp of leaves and the ripple of rain.

Don’t let them tell you poetry is bullshit.
Don’t let them tell you poetry is for the birds.
Have a good laugh at those who tell you poets are misfits or potential terrorists and a danger to the state.
Don’t let them tell you poetry is a neurosis that some people never outgrow.
Laugh at those who tell you poetry is all written by the Holy Ghost and you’re just a ghost-writer.
Don’t ever believe poetry is irrelevant in dark times."

[Jonathan · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really wanted to like this book. I loved "A Coney Island of the Mind." It starts as a bunch of short lines about poetry in general. Some of which are interesting at even at times beautiful. The lines are much like what Jack Kerouac describes as tics. I found myself earmarking a few of the Ferlinghetti lines early on and toward the middle of the short collection. Then I found many lines which actually made me mad and that seemed hypocritical. I suppose the book was a success for Ferlinghetti as he probably wanted to cause reactions with his writing, unfortunately for me the overall reaction was unsatisfied.

[Jim · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this largely to be inspired during such a time of depression (2016 Rep/Dem conventions).

At a minimum, Ferlinghetti imagines an entirely different world and does not meekly accept the crap we are being offered.

[Drew Cook · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is the moon weeping because it must fade away in the day.

[Greg Bem · Rating 5 out of 5]

I must have read this in my dreams because it felt so completely familiar.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some interesting ideas and small gems in this book, but overall I was not particularly impressed. A lot of it reads like plain old stoner hippy rambling, which I have enough of in my life already. I was also annoyed by how much it was geared toward white American males. It undermined Ferlinghetti's otherwise successful attempt to be a call-to-arms. Er...a call-to-pens? Eh. Sorry.

His views on prose-as-poetry are interesting, though I disagree with them. He lambasts the calling of certain works "poems," apparently because they lack lyricism. However, lyric poetry has always only been one type of poetry, though it has reigned supreme in the West for the better part of the modern era. The interesting thing is that many of these works meet the criteria he lays out in "What is Poetry?" But they are things that "couldn't possibly be sung." It seems like wants to draw a line between prose and poetry, but he can't quite make up his mind as to where that line should be, and cannot accept that the two might intersect.

One thing that I did really enjoy was Ferlinghetti's humor, with gems like, "We have seen the best minds of our generation/destroyed by boredom at poetry readings." I recommend the book for its humor and for the ideas, even though I disagree with about 60% of them -- at least it got me thinking.

[Richard Subber · Rating 2 out of 5]

I’m ignoring the Socialist activist thing in Ferlinghetti’s past. It’s really old news and it’s dull news—socialism isn’t and never was a clear and present danger in America, because the debilitating capitalist mentality and reality is entrenched.
Moving on to Ferlinghetti’s poetry: I confess I haven’t read a lot of it. I tried his Poetry as Insurgent Art (2007) and it didn’t leave me panting for more.
Much of it is a collection of one-liners, like “If you have nothing to say, don’t say it” and “Come out of your closet. It’s dark in there.”
Forsooth.
My takeaway from Poetry as Insurgent Art is that Ferlinghetti is in love with his own careless spontaneity.
I certainly acknowledge that some readers may view this work as the outpouring of a driven great spirit. Different strokes…
I think it is the slough of a generous but disconnected artist’s talent with words.
Ferlinghetti says “Don’t be so open-minded that your brains fall out.” Them’s words to live by, I guess…
Here’s my advice to M. Ferlinghetti:
Don’t be so open-minded that there’s nothing you won’t write.
Poetry as Insurgent Art is much too ordinary to be insurgent.
Take it from Walt Whitman, you need a bit of “barbaric yawp” to do insurgent poetry.
Read more of my book reviews and my poetry here:
http://richardsubber.com/

[Sarah Johnson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed every page of Ferlinghetti’s manifesto on poetry, and though I don’t agree with every stance he takes, I appreciate the passion with which he writes. I guess I also just love good poems. I like poetry for the same reason I like well-written fantasy novels: they each reveal—in their own, exceedingly different ways—truths about our world by taking us outside of ourselves and our reality. Ferlinghetti says it beautifully: “A true poem can create a divine stillness in the world./ It is made with the syllables of dreams.” Give this a read if you’re looking for something both political (hello, 1970’s!) and at times delicately beautiful.

[Melanie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting bits and pieces of poetry, though some felt entirely too pretentious for me. But there were a few stanzas I did thoroughly enjoy.

[Dustin Reade · Rating 3 out of 5]

meh. repetitive. contradictory. but well written. even beautiful at times. rambling. pretentious. poetic. meh.

i am not following Ferlinghetti down this particular rabbit hole.

[Frank Karioris · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yes. Need this. Read this.

[dieguito ‧₊˚✩ ₊˚⊹♡‧₊˚ · Rating 5 out of 5]

“A poesia é a menor distância entre duas pessoas.”

viva, ferlinghetti!

[M.W.P.M. · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am signalling you through the flames.

The North Pole is not where it used to be.

Manifest Destiny is no longer manifest.

Civilization self-destructs.

Nemesis is knocking at the door.

What are poets for, in such an age? What is the use of poetry? (pg. 3)

So begins "Poetry As Insurgent Art", the first of three pieces that make up this short collection of meditations/reflections on the nature of poetry. "Poetry As Insurgent Art" asks questions, such as "What are poets for, in such an age? What is the use of poetry?", and provides a number of answers, some of them conflicting, answers such as...

If you would be a poet, write living newspapers. Be a reporter from outer space, filing dispatches to some supreme managing editor who believes in full disclosure and has a low tolerance for bullshit. (pg. 4)

If you call yourself a poet, don't just sit there. Poetry is not a sedentary occupation, not a "take your seat" practice. Stand up and let them have it. (pg. 5)

Through art, create order out of the chaos of living. (pg. 7)

Your images in a poem should be jamais vu, not déjà vu. (pg. 10)

Your life is your poetry. If you have no heart, you'll write heartless poetry. (pg. 16)

Don't be so open-minded that your brains fall out. (pg. 20)

Don't slip on the banana peel of nihilism, even while listening to the roar of Nothingness. (pg. 25)

If you have nothing to say, don't say it. (pg. 28)

Don't destroy the world unless you have something better to replace it. (pg. 30)

At times Ferlinghetti acknowledges his contradictions, as when he asks: "Can you imagine Shelley attending a poetry workshop?" followed by: "Yet poetry workshops may create communities of poetic kinship in heartland America where many may feel lonely and lost for lack of kindred souls." (pg. 18). Other times, Ferlinghetti's contradictions are less obvious, as when he states: "Don't fiddle with your moustache in hopeless cellars, writing incomprehensible drivel." (pg. 26) despite having already stated: "If you would be a poet, experiment with all manner of poetics, erotic broken grammars, ecstatic religions, heathen outpourings speaking in tongues bombast public speech, automatic scribblings, surrealist sensing streams of consciousness, found sounds, rants and raves - to create your own limbic, your own underlying voice, your ur voice." (pg. 4-5) This may be an oversight by the poet, or it may be that he's succumbed to the staunchness of the status quo. But I would like to believe that he is testing the reader. Earlier, Ferlinghetti states "Be subversive, constantly questioning reality and the status quo." (pg. 8) By aligning himself with the "status quo", Ferlinghetti is teaching the reader to question everyone - everyone, including the person telling you to question everyone.

"What is Poetry", the second of the three pieces, follows in the footsteps of the first piece. Whereas "Poetry As Insurgent Art" sought to provide a broader spectrum of questions and answers regarding poetry, "What is Poetry?" seeks only to answer the titular question, and, when possible, to answer it poetically...

Poetry is the truth that reveals all lies, the face without mascara. (pg. 35)

Words wait to be reborn in the shadow of the lamp of poetry. (pg. 36)

Poetry a naked woman, a naked man, and the distance between them. (pg. 38)

Poetry the shortest distance between two humans. (pg. 40)

Poetry is worth nothing and therefore priceless. (pg. 48)

It hears the whispers of elephants. (pg. 51)

Poetry destroys the bad breath of machines. (pg. 61)

Poetry an innate urge toward truth and beauty. (pg. 62)

It is the ultimate Resistance. (pg. 65)

There are moments when Ferlinghetti becomes unexpectedly political. These moments feel somewhat out of place in the context of what is otherwise a light collection of playful pieces...

Have a good laugh a those who tell you poets are misfits or potential terrorists and a danger to the state. (pg. 27)

The war against the imagination is not the only war. Using the 9/11 Twin Towers disaster as an excuse, America has initiated the Third World War, which is the War against the Third World. (pg. 59)

Dissident poetry is not UnAmerican. (pg. 66)

The third part of Poetry As Insurgent Art, entitled "Forethoughts", is divided into three parts, three pieces written by Ferlinghetti in the late 1970s: "Populist Manifesto #1" and "Populist Manifesto #2", in which Ferlinghetti issues a call-to-arms in the wake of the public's waning interest in poetry; and "Modern Poetry is Prose", in which Ferlinghetti is critical of what he considers to be "the dumbest conspiracy of silence in the history of letters" - that is, prose masquerading as poetry...

Poets, come out of your closets,
Open your windows, open your doors,
You have been holed-up too long
in your closed worlds.
Come down, come down
from your Russian Hills and Telegraph Hills,
your Beacon Hills and your Chapel Hills,
your Mount Analogues and Montparnasses,
down from your foothills and mountains,
out of your teepees and domes.
The trees are still falling
and we’ll to the woods no more.
No time now for sitting in them
As man burns down his own house
to roast his pig
No more chanting Hare Krishna
while Rome burns.
San Francisco’s burning,
Mayakovsky’s Moscow’s burning
the fossil-fuels of life.
Night & the Horse approaches
eating light, heat & power,
and the clouds have trousers.
No time now for the artist to hide
above, beyond, behind the scenes,
indifferent, paring his fingernails,
refining himself out of existence.
No time now for our little literary games,
no time now for our paranoias & hypochondrias,
no time now for fear & loathing,
time now only for light & love.
We have seen the best minds of our generation
destroyed by boredom at poetry readings.
Poetry isn’t a secret society,
It isn’t a temple either.
Secret words & chants won’t do any longer.
The hour of oming is over,
the time of keening come,
a time for keening & rejoicing
over the coming end
of industrial civilization
which is bad for earth & Man.
Time now to face outward
in the full lotus position
with eyes wide open,
Time now to open your mouths
with a new open speech,
time now to communicate with all sentient beings,
All you ‘Poets of the Cities’
hung in museums including myself,
All you poet’s poets writing poetry
about poetry,
All you poetry workshop poets
in the boondock heart of America,
All you housebroken Ezra Pounds,
All you far-out freaked-out cut-up poets,
All you pre-stressed Concrete poets,
All you cunnilingual poets,
All you pay-toilet poets groaning with graffiti,
All you A-train swingers who never swing on birches,
All you masters of the sawmill haiku in the Siberias of America,
All you eyeless unrealists,
All you self-occulting supersurrealists,
All you bedroom visionaries and closet agitpropagators,
All you Groucho Marxist poets
and leisure-class Comrades
who lie around all day and talk about the workingclass proletariat,
All you Catholic anarchists of poetry,
All you Black Mountaineers of poetry,
All you Boston Brahims and Bolinas bucolics,
All you den mothers of poetry,
All you zen brothers of poetry,
All you suicide lovers of poetry,
All you hairy professors of poesie,
All you poetry reviewers
drinking the blood of the poet,
All you Poetry Police -
Where are Whitman’s wild children,
where the great voices speaking out
with a sense of sweetness and sublimity,
where the great’new vision,
the great world-view,
the high prophetic song
of the immense earth
and all that sings in it
And our relations to it -
Poets, descend
to the street of the world once more
And open your minds & eyes
with the old visual delight,
Clear your throat and speak up,
Poetry is dead, long live poetry
with terrible eyes and buffalo strength.
Don’t wait for the Revolution
or it’ll happen without you,
Stop mumbling and speak out
with a new wide-open poetry
with a new commonsensual ‘public surface’
with other subjective levels
or other subversive levels,
a tuning fork in the inner ear
to strike below the surface.
Of your own sweet Self still sing
yet utter ‘the word en-masse -
Poetry the common carrier
for the transportation of the public
to higher places
than other wheels can carry it.
Poetry still falls from the skies
into our streets still open.
They haven’t put up the barricades, yet,
the streets still alive with faces,
lovely men & women still walking there,
still lovely creatures everywhere,
in the eyes of all the secret of all
still buried there,
Whitman’s wild children still sleeping there,
Awake and walk in the open air.
- Populist Manifesto #1 (pg. 69-75)


And the nightingales may still be singing near the Convent of the Sacred Heart, but we can hardly hear them in the city waste lands of T. S. Eliot, nor in his Four Quartets (which can't be played on any instrument and yet is the most beautiful prose of our time). Nor in the prose wastes of Ezra Pound's Cantos which aren't canti because they couldn't possibly be sung. Nor in the pangolin prose of Marianne Moore (who called her writing poetry for lack of anything better to call it). Nor in the great prose blank verse of Karl Shapiro's Essays on Rime, nor in the outer city speech of William Carlos Williams, in the flat-out speech of his Paterson. All of which is applauded by poetry professors and poetry reviewers in all the best places, none of whom will commit the original sin of saying some poet's poetry is prose in the typography of poetry - just as the poet's friends will never tell him, just as the poet's editor will never say it - the dumbest conspiracy of silence in the history of letters.
- Modern Poetry is Prose (pg. 88-89)

[Elliana Jenness · Rating 5 out of 5]

I know what poetry is, I know I do. I did before reading this book. But not I know it’s many more definitions, and somehow Ferlinghetti has opened my eyes to new meanings. I’m in awe, yet again of the power of poetry.

“Poetry is the supreme fiction
Poetry is eternal graffiti in the heart of everyone.
Poetry is the anarchy of the senses making sense.
The poets voice is the other voice asleep in every human.
Poetry is worth nothing and therefore priceless.
Poetry is a form of lyric insanity.
Poetry is the real subject of great prose.”

There is so much to love about this book. It opens your eyes and every orifice that can hold poetry.

But I will have to disagree very strongly with his statement, “Poetry about poetry is counterfeit poetry” because that is such a lie. I believe poetry about poetry is simply giving the “person”/world of poetry a much deeper voice that wasn’t first heard through its language, to the unreading people who disregard poetry.

This is an otherwise remarkable book about the rebellion and anarchy of dismantling and building back up all that poetry and art means.

[Dana · Rating 5 out of 5]

A small, powerful exhortation to poets about how to poet, to humans searching for their humanity about how to be. Anyone aspiring to anything revolutionary. So many lines to be quoted, illustrated, lived. Coming down from mountains and singing to the world.

I wish someone had given me this book in college when I was struggling to find the meaning of poetry in a world that increasingly ignores it, the purpose in a world that needs changing. When I sat in a class that discussed Maya Angelou's inauguration poetry reading, and I asked what the point of it was if the poetic tone pushed people away from poetry. This book would have been my answer. For all I know someone may have recommended it to me and my college notes might contain an ignored note to pick it up. I picked it up because he died, I picked it up because I'm afraid of my mom dying and she's a fan of Ferlinghetti. I know she used to reference A Coney Island of the Mind so I picked that up too, but I got this one because the title sounded like what I needed back then, and it's small so I started reading this one first. And this one was practically out of print compared to that one, making it feel all the more important somehow.

What a shame, because I feel that everyone should read this. Not only myself ten-plus years ago, but we could all read it and be reminded about how and when and what to aim to bring into the world. Even if not a poet, it would apply to any medium, any craft, even computer code. Although it does make me want to write poetry again, specifically. Also to go to San Francisco, his bookstore, find the time to read all the other poets he hung out with, the ancient ones and the 1800s ones referenced. Something about the universal through the subjective that he said better in fewer words so I'll stop writing now.

[Ana Gómez · Rating 5 out of 5]

Que lindos eses momentos en que, despois dun tempo, te atopas cun texto poético que verdadeiramente te chega. É como reatoparse con aquela adolescente de dezasete anos, vestido curto de cor granate, que por primeira vez se sorprendía de que un poema puidese estar reflectindo con tanta exactitude as súas emocións. E toda esa intensidade acariñada polo sol de maio. Unha rapaza con tantas expectativas para o futuro… que xa o dixo Ferlinghetti, “vimos as mellores mentes da nosa xeración
destruídas polo fastío en recitais poéticos”

[Fatima · Rating 4 out of 5]

didn’t expect to like it but picked it up regardless. (mostly because of how small it was). safe to day i didnt love it but it definitely had some parts that a truly enjoyed. 3.5 stars

[Rose Baseil Massa · Rating 4 out of 5]

simultaneously timely and political and contradictory with a side of pretentiousness. I don’t know if I want to live in Ferlinghetti’s world… I will probably stick to the Black revolutionaries.

[Daniel Quinn · Rating 3 out of 5]

It is the bird singing that makes us happy.